Where is the Money Going?
High Cost of Execution: $700 Million in California if State Kills All on Death Row
For California to execute the more than 700 murderers on death row, the state would have to spend about $700 million to do so, according to the Bay Area News Group.
The review of capital punishment cases revealed just how costly, and time cons... read more
Income Gulf between CEOs and Workers 11 Times Greater than in 1965
To understand how the wealthy 1% more than doubled its share of the nation’s wealth in the past 30 years and holds onto it, just keep an eye on Wall Street and the corporate CEOs. Today, American CEO pay is about 231 times greater than average wor... read more
Georgia to Save $50 Million a Year by Reserving Prison for Violent Offenders
Faced with runaway costs from housing too many prisoners, politicians in Georgia have decided to change the way the state deals with low-level offenders so that correctional facilities primarily house violent criminals.
Under landmark legislat... read more
White House Biotechnology Blueprint Criticized for Ignoring Regulation
The Obama administration has crafted a master plan for biotechnology that emphasizes economic opportunities while ignoring sufficient regulation of the industry.
The National Bioeconomy Blueprint, released by the White House, is part of the Ob... read more
Old Age is Increasingly a Gateway to Poverty
Things were looking up for seniors until the last decade. During the 1980s and 1990s, poverty declined among older Americans. But this trend began to reverse, especially after 2005, with poverty levels increasing for both seniors and younger citiz... read more
Is Pentagon Missile Defense Plan Just a $124 Billion Fantasy?
After a year of analysis, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that the Department of Defense is still nowhere near developing a reliable defense against ballistic missiles.
About $80 billion was spent over the past 10 years bu... read more
Navy Orders $262 Million Worth of Helicopter Drones that Failed to Complete 46% of Missions
Inability to land properly was enough for the U.S. Navy to ground its most important unmanned helicopters. But the “mishaps” weren’t enough to stop Navy commanders from ordering a new-and-improved version of the aircraft.
About two weeks ago, ... read more
National Endowment for Arts Makes First Grants for Video Games; PBS Funding Down
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) upset many of its longtime grant recipients this week when it cut funding for numerous PBS programs. But it also won praise from videogame makers for awarding its first grants to non-profit game developers... read more
Crop Insurance Subsidizes Insurance Companies as Much as Farmers
Washington’s effort to help protect the American farmer has proven to be a billion-dollar bonanza for insurance companies and agents.
According to a report from the Environmental Working Group, the federal government’s crop insurance program h... read more
GAO Urges Obama to Cancel Wasteful Medicare Experiment
The Obama administration should cancel an experimental Medicare program that is wasting $8 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
As part of the 2010 health care law, Congress eliminated Medicare payments to managed ... read more
Why are Americans Still Paying for Newt Gingrich’s Secret Service Protection?
Newt Gingrich has no chance of catching Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination and his campaign is deeply in debt. But that hasn’t stopped the former House Speaker from carrying on his political travels, which are being... read more
First-Time Homebuyers’ Tax Credit…Another Failed Policy
President Barack Obama’s first-time homebuyers tax credit was supposed to help bolster the housing market and get the economy going again. It did have a positive impact, temporarily, during the recession, before things again went south for home pr... read more
For First Time, Bank Investors Reject Large Pay Package for CEO
In what has been described as a corporate milestone, shareholders of Citigroup rejected the new compensation package, valued at $15 million, for CEO Vikram S. Pandit.
The decision marked the first time stockowners voted against a multi-million... read more
Paying for Access to the Obama White House
President Barack Obama is not accepting contributions from registered lobbyists, but that doesn’t mean he’s not accepting lobbyists in the Oval Office.
A review of White House visitor logs by The New York Times found that many lobbyists have p... read more
The Champion of Going over Budget…Defense Department
Every spring, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) gives critics of the Defense Department (DoD) a present, courtesy of Congress, in the form of a report on the state of the Pentagon’s major weapons programs. GAO’s report for 2011, released ... read more
Fund to Help “Hardest Hit” Homeowners Has Used Only 3% of Budget
A special program created by the Obama administration to help homeowners hit hardest by the mortgage crisis has aided only a small fraction of those eligible.
The two-year-old Hardest Hit Fund, managed by the Department of the Treasury t... read more